Pomp and Circumstance
by millie-mione
Summary: It's graduation night for Severus Snape, and he's not happy as he reminisces over his failings. Will he end it all, or will someon help him realize what he's worth? Renowned Potions Master Severus Snape belongs to bestselling author J.K. Rowling.


Tonight was the last night of Severus Snape's seventh year at Hogwarts. He felt pangs of regret stab his insides as he strolled the corridors alone. The walls around him echoed the many missed opportunities that were now gone forever. He stared outside at the marauders and their dates to the graduation afterparty and cursed.

He hated what he became. True in all he was a powerful wizard who could cast any spell or make any potion you put before him, but he was no match for them.

'Them.' Those blasted marauders. Thinking of them made him so angry that he cursed all the unworthy individuals to whom everything came so easy in life. Strangely, of all his rivals like this, the marauders were not the ones to take him down. It was his most benign rival Mariane Gray that defeated him by coming out at the top of the class in his year.

You'd think that the rules of fairness would apply to everyone in turn, but did they? No. It were as if Fate had shined some magical aura about people like that and conveniently managed to ignore the worth and merit of people like himself who struggled and put forth every effort to do things as they were supposed to be done.

He remembered writing his essay for Transfiguration just before the Christmas holiday. He worked on it all night, and that giggly little Hufflepuff, Marianne Gray, wrote hers just before class. Who got the better grade? She did.

He waited for class to let out and cast a body-binding hex at Marianne. However, it missed her when she bent down to tie her shoe, and hit Professor MacGonagall .

He got a week's detention after that. He knew that he deserved it and was willing to accept his fate, until he saw Marianne hovering outside the window of the detention classromm conjuring butterflies and spreading rainbows. Just who did she think she was, some kind of hippie fairy?

Really feeling annoyed, Severus Snape turned and looked to the front of the classroom to see the detention proctor's back turned. He seized the opportunity,and he cast the body-bind at her again. His heart jumped for joy when he saw that it got her this time. 'Let's see her grin her way out of this one,' he thought spitefully.

Surely enough, Marianne did. She cast 'Corpus Liberatum' spell over herself, and a silverline spiraled her, setting her dumpy form free.

Oh, damn her! Wait.It was no big deal. He calmed down and assured himself that he had plenty opportunites, and that he would get her one way or another. No way would she or any otherlittle mudblood insect get away with besting him and getting him thrown into detention.

Three months later, the Potions final arrived, and Professor tripplehorn asked each of his students to create an original potion. He made a potion that could restore just about any kind flaw in clothing material. Surely, he would get the highest grade. He hadn't yet read of a wizard who could work miracles on fabric that was worn or faded. However, that awful Marianne Gray toppled his dreams of grandeur to pieces a second time when she presented her damned clear and nonsticky pineapple/butterscotch taffy. You could chew it for hours, and it wouldn't lose its flavor. She got the best grade based solely upon its popularity.

A company bought Marianne's creation a month before graduation, and she was going to be rich. He was stuck going to finishing school to become a professor. There was no comparison. He felt like going outside to annoy the marauders, just so they could hex him into oblivion and end the inner misery that plagued him.

It was purely ironic that his enemies should now seem like friends, given the fact that he wanted to end his life. This whole night was just descending upon him like a falling pile opf bricks. Then, as if matters couldn't get any worse, who should sneak up behind him and squeeze him like some plush toy? You guessed it, Marianne Gray.

" Oh, Severus! I am really going to miss you!" Marianne said grinning ear to ear.

Was she nuts right now? He was just about ready to snatch her bald.

" I know that I gave the valedictory speech tonight, but it should have been you. You were always the better wizard. I only got by on luck."

Wasn't that the understatement of the year?

" I know how cheated you must feel."

Marianne hadn't the faintest inkling.

" I know that I would be here hating me if I were in your shoes right now."

She certainly came close. Try utterly loathing and despising as more exact terms.

" Just allow me to say this."

What ever it was, he surely wished that she'd get on with it. The less he saw of her, the easier it would be for him to carry out his plan to put an end to his pain and embarassment.

" There will never be another wizard like you. I so look forward to hearing of your future exploits. While it's true that people here could never appreciate your brilliance, I know for a fact that they will, once you get your bearing in the world. Until then, don't give up. You've got a lot to give. Well, now that I've said all that. I'll be going."

For a moment, he felt light course through the empty corridor, but it left soon after Marianne made her departure. He realized that it felt good to finally be acknowledged by someone, and by the class valedictorian at that. Somehow he always felt that it would be James Potter or Remus Lupin who'd be at the top of the class, but it was Marianne, and given the fact that theirs was a rivalry too little known, he preferred it this way. He guessed that being second in the class wasn't so bad, now that someone understood how great he really was. Severus Snape decided to cast his thoughts of suicide off and join the rest of the class for the fun and festivities. He found Marianne, asked her to dance, and she obliged. They danced the rest of the night away, not as rivals, but as a pair of ordinary seniors.

Little did he know, however, that in about two or three years that he'd be killing Marianne Gray to initiate himself into the Death Eater circle.


End file.
